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<title>10 October, 2023</title>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="covid-19-sentry">Covid-19 Sentry</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-preprints">From Preprints</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-pubmed">From PubMed</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-patent-search">From Patent Search</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-preprints">From Preprints</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Computer model and code sharing practices in healthcare discrete-event simulation: a systematic scoping review</strong> -
<div>
Objectives: Discrete-event simulation is a widely used computational method in health services and health economic studies. This systematic scoping review investigates to what extent authors share computer models, and audits if sharing adheres to best practice. Data sources: The Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and ACM Digital Library databases were searched between 1st January 2019 till 31st December 2022. Eligibility criteria for selecting studies: Cost-effectiveness, Health service research and methodology studies in a health context were included. Data extraction and synthesis: The data extraction and best practice audit were performed by two reviewers. We developed best practice audit criteria based on the Turing Way and other published reproducibility guides. Main outcomes and measures: We measured the proportion of literature that shared models; we report analyses by publication type, year of publication, Covid-19 application; and free and open source versus commercial software. Results: 47 (8.3%) of the 564 studies included cited a published DES computer model; rising to 9.0% in 2022. Studies were more likely to share models if they had been developed using free and open source tools. Studies rarely followed best practice when sharing computer models. Conclusions: Although still in the minority, there is evidence that healthcare DES authors are increasingly sharing their computer model artifacts. Although commercial software dominates the DES literature, free and open source software plays a crucial role in sharing. The DES community can adopt many simple best practices to improve the quality of sharing.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/c4ytf/" target="_blank">Computer model and code sharing practices in healthcare discrete-event simulation: a systematic scoping review</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Direct measures of liking and intensity of taste, smell, and chemesthetic stimuli are similar between young people reporting they did or did not have COVID-19</strong> -
<div>
The recovery period from post-COVID-19 smell and taste dysfunctions varies substantially, lasting from a few days to over a year. We aimed to assess the impact of COVID-19 on post-COVID-19 chemosensory sensitivity in a group of young convalescents of eastern/central European ancestry. We measured subjects smell and taste capabilities with a standard testing kit, Monell Flavor Quiz (MFQ), and collected surveys on COVID-19 history. During testing, subjects rated liking and intensity of six odor samples (galaxolide, guaiacol, beta-ionone, trimethylamine, phenylethyl alcohol, 2-ethyl fenchol) and six taste samples (sucralose, sodium chloride, citric acid, phenylthiocarbamide, menthol, capsaicin) on a scale from 1 (dislike extremely, or no intensity) to 9 (like extremely, or extremely intense). There was no statistical difference in intensity ratings or liking of any sample between subjects who reported a history of COVID-19 (n = 34) and those reporting no history (n = 40), independent of presence/absence or severity of smell/taste impairments (P &gt; 0.05). Additionally, neither vaccination status (full vaccination or no vaccination) nor time from the COVID-19 onset (2-27 months) correlated with liking or intensity. These results suggest that most young adults who had COVID-19 recovered their sense of smell and taste.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.07.561170v1" target="_blank">Direct measures of liking and intensity of taste, smell, and chemesthetic stimuli are similar between young people reporting they did or did not have COVID-19</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>The SARS-CoV-2 Spike is a virulence determinant and plays a major role on the attenuated phenotype of Omicron virus in a feline model of infection</strong> -
<div>
To assess the role of the Omicron BA.1 Spike (S) protein in the pathogenesis of the severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), we generated recombinant viruses harboring the S D614G mutation (rWA1-D614G) and the Omicron BA.1 S gene (rWA1-Omi-S) in the backbone of the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 WA1 strain genome. The recombinant viruses were characterized in vitro and in vivo. Viral entry, cell-cell fusion, viral plaque size, and viral replication kinetics of the rWA1-Omi-S virus were markedly impaired when compared to the rWA1-D614G virus, demonstrating a lower fusogenicity and ability to spread cell-to-cell of rWA1-Omi-S. To assess the contribution of the Omicron BA.1 S protein to SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis the pathogenicity of rWA1-D614G and rWA1-Omi-S viruses were compared using a feline model of infection. While the rWA1-D614G-inoculated cats became lethargic and showed increased body temperatures on days 2 and 3 post-infection (pi), rWA1-Omi-S-inoculated cats remained subclinical and gained weight throughout the 14-day experimental period. Animals inoculated with rWA1-D614G presented higher levels of infectious virus shedding in nasal secretions, when compared to rWA1-Omi-S-inoculated animals. In addition, tissue replication of the rWA1-Omi-S was markedly reduced compared to the rWA1-D614G, as evidenced by lower in situ viral RNA and lower viral load in tissues on days 3 and 5 pi. Histologic examination of the nasal turbinate and lungs revealed intense inflammatory infiltration in rWA1-D614G-inoculated animals, whereas rWA1-Omi-S-inoculated cats presented only mild to modest inflammation. Together, these results demonstrate that the S protein is a major virulence determinant for SARS-CoV-2 playing a major role for the attenuated phenotype of the Omicron virus.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.09.561473v1" target="_blank">The SARS-CoV-2 Spike is a virulence determinant and plays a major role on the attenuated phenotype of Omicron virus in a feline model of infection</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>LETHAL COVID-19 ASSOCIATES WITH RAAS-INDUCED INFLAMMATION FOR MULTIPLE ORGAN DAMAGE INCLUDING MEDIASTINAL LYMPH NODES</strong> -
<div>
Lethal COVID-19 causation most often invokes classic cytokine storm and attendant excessive immune signaling. We re-visit this question using RNA sequencing in nasopharyngeal and 40 autopsy samples from both COVID-19-positive and negative individuals. In nasal swabs, the top 100 genes expressed, and significantly correlated with COVID-19 viral load, indeed include many canonical innate immune genes. However, 22 much less studied "non-canonical" genes are found and despite the absence of viral transcripts, subsets of these are upregulated in heart, lung, kidney, and liver, but not mediastinal lymph nodes. An important regulatory potential emerges for the non-canonical genes for over-activating the renin-angiotensin-activation-system (RAAS) pathway, resembling this phenomenon in hereditary angioedema (HAE) and its overlapping multiple features with lethal COVID-19 infections. Specifically, RAAS overactivation links increased fibrin deposition, leaky vessels, thrombotic tendency, and initiating the PANoptosis death pathway, as suggested in heart, lung, and especially mediastinal lymph nodes, and a tight association mitochondrial dysfunction linked to immune responses. For mediastinal lymph nodes, immunohistochemistry studies correlate showing abnormal architecture, excess fibrin and collagen deposition, and pathogenic fibroblasts. Further, our findings overlap these for COVID-19 infected hamsters, C57BL/6 and BALB/c mouse models, and importantly peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) and whole blood samples from COVID-19 patients infected with early alpha but also later COVID-19 omicron strains. We thus present cytokine storm in lethal COVID-19 disease as an interplay between upstream immune gene signaling producing downstream RAAS overactivation with resultant severe organ damage, especially compromising mediastinal lymph node function.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.08.561395v1" target="_blank">LETHAL COVID-19 ASSOCIATES WITH RAAS-INDUCED INFLAMMATION FOR MULTIPLE ORGAN DAMAGE INCLUDING MEDIASTINAL LYMPH NODES</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Host and viral determinants of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the Syrian hamster</strong> -
<div>
It remains poorly understood how SARS-CoV-2 infection influences the physiological host factors important for aerosol transmission. We assessed breathing pattern, exhaled droplets, and infectious virus after infection with Alpha and Delta variants of concern (VOC) in the Syrian hamster. Both VOCs displayed a confined window of detectable airborne virus (24-48 h), shorter than compared to oropharyngeal swabs. The loss of airborne shedding was linked to airway constriction resulting in a decrease of fine aerosols (1-10 micrometer) produced, which are suspected to be the major driver of airborne transmission. Male sex was associated with increased viral replication and virus shedding in the air. Next, we compared the transmission efficiency of both variants and found no significant differences. Transmission efficiency varied mostly among donors, 0-100% (including a superspreading event), and aerosol transmission over multiple chain links was representative of natural heterogeneity of exposure dose and downstream viral kinetics. Co-infection with VOCs only occurred when both viruses were shed by the same donor during an increased exposure timeframe (24-48 h). This highlights that assessment of host and virus factors resulting in a differential exhaled particle profile is critical for understanding airborne transmission.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.15.504010v3" target="_blank">Host and viral determinants of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the Syrian hamster</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Immunomodulators and risk for breakthrough infection after third COVID-19 mRNA vaccine among patients with rheumatoid arthritis: A cohort study</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Objectives: To investigate COVID-19 breakthrough infection after third mRNA vaccine dose among patients with RA by immunomodulator drug class, and we hypothesized that CD20 inhibitors (CD20i) would have higher risk for breakthrough COVID-19 vs. TNF inhibitors (TNFi). Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study investigating breakthrough COVID-19 among RA patients at Mass General Brigham in Boston, MA, USA. Patients were followed from the date of 3rd vaccine dose until breakthrough COVID-19, death, or end of follow-up (18/Jan/2023). Covariates included demographics, lifestyle, comorbidities, and prior COVID-19. We used Cox proportional hazards models to estimate breakthrough COVID-19 risk by immunomodulator drug class. We used propensity score (PS) overlap-weighting to compare users of CD20i vs. TNFi. Results: We analyzed 5781 patients with RA that received 3 mRNA vaccine doses (78.8% female, mean age 64.2 years). During mean follow-up of 12.8 months, 1173 (20.2%) had breakthrough COVID_19. Use of CD20i (adjusted HR 1.74, 95%CI 1.30-2.33) and glucocorticoid monotherapy (adjusted HR 1.47, 95%CI 1.09-1.98) were each associated with breakthrough COVID-19 compared to TNFi use. In the PS overlap-weighted analysis, CD20i users also had higher breakthrough COVID-19 risk than TNFi users (HR 1.62, 95%CI 1.02-2.56). A sensitivity analysis excluding patients with cancer or interstitial lung disease yielded similar findings. Conclusions: We identified CD20i and glucocorticoid monotherapy as risk factors for breakthrough COVID-19 among patients with RA after a 3rd vaccine dose. This contemporary study highlights the real-world impact of blunted immune responses in these subgroups and the need for effective risk mitigation strategies.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.08.23296717v1" target="_blank">Immunomodulators and risk for breakthrough infection after third COVID-19 mRNA vaccine among patients with rheumatoid arthritis: A cohort study</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Impact of sampling site on diagnostic test accuracy of RT-PCR in diagnosing Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection since the emergence of omicron: a systematic review and meta-analysis</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Nasopharyngeal sampling (NP) is the routine standard for SASR-CoV-2 detection using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). In this systematic review, we assessed diagnostic test accuracy of alternative sampling sites compared to NP for RT-PCR testing of Omicron (sub)-variants. We systematically searched for studies from January 2022 until February 2023 investigating any type of respiratory sample for RT-PCR in people with suspected, known, or known absence of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection. Data were pooled for each comparison using the bivariate model, sensitivity and specificity was estimated with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Risk of bias was assessed with QUADAS-2 tool, certainty of evidence with GRADE. We included three cohort-type cross-sectional studies (1,003 participants). Saliva versus NP sampling in three studies showed a sensitivity of 92% (95% CI 87% to 96%) and a specificity of 94% (95% CI 83% to 98%). AN versus NP sampling in one study showed a sensitivity of 90% (95% CI 82% to 95%) and a specificity of 99% (95% CI 95% to 100%). Certainty of evidence for sensitivity and specificity of both comparisons was low to very low. Based on the current very low‐ to low‐certainty evidence, we are uncertain about accuracy of different sampling sites for RT-PCR.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.09.23296728v1" target="_blank">Impact of sampling site on diagnostic test accuracy of RT-PCR in diagnosing Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection since the emergence of omicron: a systematic review and meta-analysis</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Effects of COVID-19 mRNA vaccination on HIV viremia and reservoir size</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Objective: The immunogenic nature of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines led to some initial concern that these could stimulate the HIV reservoir. We analyzed changes in plasma HIV loads (pVL) and reservoir size following COVID-19 mRNA vaccination in 62 people with HIV (PWH) receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART), and analyzed province-wide trends in pVL before and after the mass vaccination campaign. Design: Longitudinal observational cohort and province-wide analysis. Methods: 62 participants were sampled pre-vaccination, and one month after their first and second COVID-19 immunizations. Vaccine-induced anti-SARS-CoV-2-Spike antibodies in serum were measured using the Roche Elecsys Anti-S assay. HIV reservoirs were quantified using the Intact Proviral DNA Assay; pVL were measured using the cobas 6800 (LLOQ:20 copies/mL). The province-wide analysis included all 290,401 pVL performed in British Columbia, Canada between 2012-2022. Results: Pre-vaccination, the median intact reservoir size was 77 (IQR:20-204) HIV copies/million CD4+ T-cells, compared to 74 (IQR:27-212) and 65 (IQR:22-174) post-first and -second dose, respectively (all comparisons p&gt;0.07). Pre-vaccination, 82% of participants had pVL&lt;20 copies/mL (max:110 copies/mL), compared to 79% post-first dose (max:183 copies/mL) and 85% post-second dose (max:79 copies/mL) (p&gt;0.4). The magnitude of the vaccine-elicited anti-SARS-CoV-2-Spike antibody response did not correlate with changes in reservoir size nor detectable pVL frequency (p&gt;0.6). We found no evidence linking the COVID-19 mass vaccination campaign to population-level increases in detectable pVL frequency among all PWH in the province, nor among those who maintained pVL suppression on ART. Conclusion: We found no evidence that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines induced changes in HIV reservoir size nor plasma viremia.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.08.23296718v1" target="_blank">Effects of COVID-19 mRNA vaccination on HIV viremia and reservoir size</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Establishment of regional genomic surveillance networks in lower and lower-middle income countries</strong> -
<div>
This is a position letter that represents the stance of the members of the UNESCO-TWAS Advisory Committee on COVID-19, who come from various countries in the Global South. It addresses the disparity in SARS-CoV-2 genomic data between different countries of the global North and South. It discusses possible causes of the problem and suggests establishing regional genomic surveillance networks.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/2dq39/" target="_blank">Establishment of regional genomic surveillance networks in lower and lower-middle income countries</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Non-pharmacological interventions aimed at promoting the mental health of children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Background: Interventions to promote mental health in pediatrics need to be effective, especially in crisis contexts. This systematic review proposes compile and analyze the findings of non-pharmacological interventions conducted in samples of children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on mental health. Method: The research was carried out in PsycINFO, PubMed and Web of Science databases for empirical studies, including interventions in which measures of outcome variables were collected at least twice (pre and post). The studies samples were children and adolescents up to 19 years old, and interventions were developed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. After eligibility analyses, 16 studies were included in this review. Results: Studies used different theoretical approaches, focusing on promotion, prevention and treatment in mental health in specifics contexts. Some were delivered online, in-person, or in hybrid formats. Particularly, depression, the most frequently assessed outcome, demonstrated more favorable results within the interventions. However, due to considerable risk of bias, the analysis of results of many included studies should be performed with caution. Conclusions: Most of the interventions necessitate further validation. However, the emergence of interventions during crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, provides an opportunity to expand evidence-based mental health practices, paving the way for their application in other crisis situations. Given that mental health prevention and promotion practices can be integrated into the roles of all healthcare providers, possessing insight into the most suitable evidence-based interventions can elevate the quality of care delivered.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.07.23296694v1" target="_blank">Non-pharmacological interventions aimed at promoting the mental health of children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Conversations with a concern-addressing chatbot increase COVID-19 vaccination intentions among social media users in Kenya and Nigeria</strong> -
<div>
During mass vaccination campaigns, social media platforms can facilitate the dissemination of public health information but may also contribute to vaccine hesitancy by serving as a vehicle for the spread of false and misleading information. Although talking with health professionals is an important avenue to address individuals’ concerns, one-on-one conversations with healthcare providers are challenging to scale. Can automated, personalized messaging delivered by a chatbot address individuals’ concerns and increase vaccine acceptance? To answer this question, we designed and deployed a Facebook Messenger chatbot to address questions and concerns social media users in Kenya and Nigeria had about the COVID-19 vaccine. After optimizing messaging using an adaptive experimental design on 3,905 respondents, we compare the interactive concern-addressing chatbot to a chatbot that delivers a non-interactive public service announcement (PSA), as well as to a control, no information, chatbot condition. We find that the concern-addressing chatbot increases COVID-19 vaccine intentions and willingness by 4-5% compared to the control condition, and by 3-4% compared to the PSA intervention. Among the 22,052 respondents in our evaluation sample, who at the time of the survey in early 2022 had not yet received a single COVID-19 vaccine, we observe the largest treatment effects among those most hesitant at baseline. With advertising costs as low as $0.21 per person engaged and $4.33 per person influenced, policymakers may want to consider using personalized messaging on digital platforms to quickly and cheaply reach many people to encourage compliance with public health programs during disease outbreaks.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://osf.io/mgyxu/" target="_blank">Conversations with a concern-addressing chatbot increase COVID-19 vaccination intentions among social media users in Kenya and Nigeria</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Unravelling Causal Associations between Population Mobility and COVID-19 Cases in Spain: a Transfer Entropy Analysis</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Human mobility is a well-known factor in the spread of infectious diseases. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the rapid spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus led to healthcare systems collapsing in numerous countries, such as Spain and Italy, resulting in a significant number of deaths. To avoid such disastrous outcomes in the future, it is vital to understand how population mobility is linked to the spread of infectious diseases. To assess that, we applied an information theoretic approach called transfer entropy (TE) to measure the influence of the number of infected people travelling between two localities on the future number of infected people in the destination. We first validated our approach using simulated data from a SIR epidemiological model and found that the mobility-based TE was effective in filtering out non-causal influences that could otherwise arise, thereby successfully recovering the epidemic9s spreading patterns and the mobility network topology. We then applied the mobility-based TE to analyse the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain. We identified which regions acted as the main drivers of the pandemic at different periods, both globally and locally. Our results unravelled significant epidemiological events such as the outbreak in Lleida during the Summer of 2020, caused by the influx of temporary workers. We also analysed the effects of a non-pharmaceutical intervention in Catalunya, using mobility-based TE to compare the infection dynamics with a control region. These results help clarify how human mobility influences the dynamic spread of infectious diseases and could be used to inform future non-pharmaceutical interventions.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.09.23296732v1" target="_blank">Unravelling Causal Associations between Population Mobility and COVID-19 Cases in Spain: a Transfer Entropy Analysis</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Bayesian workflow for time-varying transmission in stratified compartmental infectious disease transmission models</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Compartmental models that describe infectious disease transmission across subpopulations are central for assessing the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions, behavioral changes and seasonal effects on the spread of respiratory infections. We present a Bayesian workflow for such models, including four features: (1) an adjustment for incomplete case ascertainment, (2) an adequate sampling distribution of laboratory-confirmed cases, (3) a flexible, time-varying transmission rate, and (4) a stratification by age group. We benchmarked the performance of various implementations of two of these features (2 and 3). For the second feature, we used SARS-CoV-2 data from the canton of Geneva (Switzerland) and found that a quasi-Poisson distribution is the most suitable sampling distribution for describing the overdispersion in the observed laboratory-confirmed cases. For the third feature, we implemented three methods: Brownian motion, B-splines, and approximate Gaussian processes (aGP). We compared their performance in terms of the number of effective samples per second, and the error and sharpness in estimating the time-varying transmission rate over a selection of ordinary differential equation solvers and tuning parameters, using simulated seroprevalence and laboratory-confirmed case data. Even though all methods could recover the time-varying dynamics in the transmission rate accurately, we found that B-splines perform up to four and ten times faster than Brownian motion and aGPs, respectively. We validated the B-spline model with simulated age-stratified data. We applied this model to 2020 laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases and two seroprevalence studies from the canton of Geneva. This resulted in detailed estimates of the transmission rate over time and the case ascertainment. Our results illustrate the potential of the presented workflow including stratified transmission to estimate age-specific epidemiological parameters. The workflow is freely available in the R package HETTMO, and can be easily adapted and applied to other surveillance data.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.09.23296742v1" target="_blank">Bayesian workflow for time-varying transmission in stratified compartmental infectious disease transmission models</a>
</div></li>
<li><strong>Covid-19 vaccine safety in pregnancy, a nested case-control study in births from April 2021 to March 2022, England</strong> -
<div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Introduction: Vaccine safety in pregnancy is always of paramount importance. Current evidence of COVID-19 vaccine safety in pregnancy has been reassuring with no association found with negative maternal and neonatal outcomes. However, very few safety studies are conducted on a national level and investigate dosage, timing of vaccination as well as vaccine manufacturer. To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a population based COVID-19 vaccine safety evaluation in England, including timing of vaccination by trimester, dosage and vaccine manufacturer received in pregnancy. Method: A matched case control study nested in a retrospective cohort where adverse maternal and neonatal pregnancy outcomes were compared across several COVID-19 vaccine exposures using conditional multivariable logistic regression, adjusting for a range of demographic and health characteristics. Eligible participants were identified from the national maternity services dataset (MSDS) and records were linked to hospital admission, national COVID-19 vaccine and COVID-19 testing databases. Matching criteria differed by outcome but included participant9s age and estimated week of conception. Results: 514,013 pregnant individuals aged between 18 and 50 years were identified during the study period (births from 16th of April 2021- 31st March 2022). Receiving at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy conferred lower odds of giving birth to a baby who was low birthweight (aOR=0.86, 95% CI: 0.79 - 0.93), preterm (aOR=0.89, 95% CI: 0.85 - 0.92) or who had an Apgar score less than 7 at five mins of age (aOR=0.89, 95% CI: 0.80 - 0.98). There was no association between vaccination in pregnancy and stillbirth (aOR=0.90, 95% CI: 0.76 - 1.07), neonatal death (aOR=1.27, 95% CI: 0.91 - 1.77) perinatal death (aOR=0.98, 95% CI: 0.83 - 1.16), and maternal venous thromboembolism in pregnancy (aOR=0.82, 95% CI: 0.43 - 1.56). The odds of maternal admission to intensive care unit were lower in vaccinated pregnant women (aOR=0.85, 95% CI: 0.76 - 0.95). Conclusion: COVID-19 vaccines are safe to use in pregnancy and they confer protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection which can lead to adverse outcomes for both the mother and the infant. Our findings generated important information to communicate to pregnant women and health professionals to support COVID-19 maternal vaccination programmes.
</p>
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.09.23296737v1" target="_blank">Covid-19 vaccine safety in pregnancy, a nested case-control study in births from April 2021 to March 2022, England</a>
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<li><strong>Human olfactory neuronal cells through nasal biopsy: molecular characterization and utility in brain science</strong> -
<div>
Biopsy is crucial in clinical medicine to obtain tissues and cells that directly reflect the pathological changes of each disease. However, the brain is an exception due to ethical and practical challenges. Nasal biopsy, which captures the olfactory neuronal epithelium, has been considered as an alternative method of obtaining neuronal cells from living patients. Multiple groups have enriched olfactory neuronal cells (ONCs) from biopsied nasal tissue. ONCs can be obtained from repeated biopsies in a longitudinal study, providing mechanistic insight associated with dynamic changes along the disease trajectory and treatment response. Nevertheless, molecular characterization of biopsied nasal cells/tissue has been insufficient. Taking advantage of recent advances in next-generation sequencing technologies at the single-cell resolution and related rich public databases, we aimed to define the neuronal characteristics, homogeneity, and utility of ONCs. We applied single-cell and bulk RNA sequencing for ONCs, analyzing and comparing the data with multiple public datasets. We observed that the molecular signatures of ONCs are similar to those of neurons, distinct from major glial cells. The signatures of ONCs resemble those of developing neurons and share features of excitatory neurons in the prefrontal and cingulate cortex. The high homogeneity of ONCs is advantageous in pharmacological, functional, and protein studies. Accordingly, we provide two proof-of-concept examples for functional and protein studies, solidifying the utility of ONCs in studying objective biomarkers and molecular mechanisms for brain disorders. The ONCs may also be useful in the studies for the olfactory epithelium impairment and the resultant mental dysfunction elicited by SARS-CoV-2.
</div>
<div class="article-link article-html-link">
🖺 Full Text HTML: <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.09.23.509290v3" target="_blank">Human olfactory neuronal cells through nasal biopsy: molecular characterization and utility in brain science</a>
</div></li>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-clinical-trials">From Clinical Trials</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Equity Evaluation of Fact Boxes - Study Protocol for a Multi-center Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19; Influenza <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Fact box <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Harding Center for Risk Literacy <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>tDCS in the Management of Post-COVID Disorders</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Device: Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS); Behavioral: Motor Training; Behavioral: Cognitive Training <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco; São Paulo State University <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Early Awake Alterning Prone Positioning Combined With Non-invasive Oxygen Therapy in Patients With COVID-19.</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 Pneumonia <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Prone position; Other: Standard treatment <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Medicas y Nutricion Salvador Zubiran <br/><b>Terminated</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>ACTIVATE in Public Housing</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Pneumonia; Influenza; Varicella Zoster; Meningitis; COVID-19; Vaccine Hesitancy <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Increasing Willingness and Uptake of Influenza, Pneumonia, Meningitis, HZV, and COVID-19 Vaccination <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Effects of a Home-Based Exercise Intervention on Physical Function, Symptoms and Health-Related Quality of Life in Subjects With Long Covid</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID-19; Post-COVID-19 Syndrome <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: home-based concurrent exercise <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of Vienna <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study of the Vector Vaccine GamCovidVac-M (Altered Antigenic Composition)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: GamCovidVac-M vector vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19 with altered antigenic composition <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Health Ministry of the Russian Federation <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study of the Vector Vaccine GamCovidVac for the Prevention of COVID-19 With Altered Antigenic Profile With Participation of Adult Volunteers</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: GamCovidVac vector vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19 (with altered antigenic profile) <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Health Ministry of the Russian Federation <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Exercise Interventions in Post-acute Sequelae of Covid-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Behavioral: Exercise <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: University of Virginia <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Effects of Cacao FLAvonoids in LOng Covid Patients (FLALOC)</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long Covid19; Fatigue Syndrome, Chronic <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Dietary Supplement: Flavonoids <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Guillermo Ceballos Reyes; Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Efficacy of the 2023-2024 Updated COVID-19 Vaccines Against COVID-19 Infection</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19; Vaccine-Preventable Diseases; SARS CoV 2 Infection; Upper Respiratory Tract Infection; Upper Respiratory Disease <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: Novavax COVID-19 vaccine (2023-2024 formula XBB containing); Biological: Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine (2023-2024 formula XBB containing) <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Sarang K. Yoon, DO, MOH; Westat; Novavax <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Clinical Trial to Evaluate the Safety of RQ-01 in SARS-CoV-2 Positive Subjects</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19; Infectious Disease; Symptomatic COVID-19 Infection Laboratory-Confirmed; SARS CoV 2 Infection <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Combination Product: RQ-001; Other: Placebo <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Red Queen Therapeutics, Inc.; PPD <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Motivational Interviewing for Vaccine Uptake in Latinx Adults</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Vaccine Hesitancy <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: EHR alert; Behavioral: Motivational Interviewing; Behavioral: Warm hand off to nurse <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Boston College; East Boston Neighborhood Health Center; Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH); Boston Children’s Hospital; National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study of “Sputnik Lite” for the Prevention of COVID-19 With Altered Antigenic Composition.</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: “Sputnik Lite” vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19 with altered antigenic composition <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Health Ministry of the Russian Federation <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Study Will Assess the Safety, Neutralizing Activity and Efficacy of AZD3152 in Adults With Conditions Increasing Risk of Inadequate Protective Immune Response After Vaccination and Thus Are at High Risk of Developing Severe COVID-19</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Biological: Biological: AZD3152; Biological: Biological: Placebo <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: AstraZeneca <br/><b>Not yet recruiting</b></p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Examining the Function of Cs4 on Post-COVID-19 Disorders</strong> - <b>Conditions</b>: Long COVID <br/><b>Interventions</b>: Other: Chinese medicine nutritional supplement Cs4 <br/><b>Sponsors</b>: The University of Hong Kong <br/><b>Recruiting</b></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-pubmed">From PubMed</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Molecular docking analysis of novel quercetin derivatives for combating SARS-CoV-2</strong> - Quercetin belongs to the flavonoid family, which is one of the most frequent types of plant phenolics. This flavonoid compound is a natural substance having a number of pharmacological effects, including anticancer and antioxidant capabilities, as well as being a strong inhibitor of various toxicologically important enzymes. We discuss the potential of newly recently synthesized quercetin-based derivatives to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 protein. ADMET analysis indicated that all of the studied compounds…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Native SEC and Reversed-Phase LC-MS Reveal Impact of Fab Glycosylation of Anti-SARS-COV-2 Antibodies on Binding to the Receptor Binding Domain</strong> - The binding affinity of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) for their intended therapeutic targets is often affected by chemical and post-translational modifications in the antigen binding (Fab) domains. A new two-dimensional analytical approach is described here utilizing native size exclusion chromatography (SEC) to separate populations of antibodies and bound antibody-antigen complexes for subsequent characterization of these modifications by reversed-phase (RP) liquid chromatography-mass…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Comparative docking and molecular dynamics studies of molnupiravir (EIDD-2801): implications for novel mechanisms of action on influenza and SARS-CoV-2 protein targets</strong> - Molnupiravir (EIDD-2801) (MLN) is an oral antiviral drug for COVID-19 treatment, being integrated into viral RNA through RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). Upon ingestion, MLN is transformed into two active metabolites: β-d-N⁴-hydroxycytidine (NHC) (EIDD-1931) in the host plasma, and EIDD-1931-triphosphate (MTP) within the host cells. However, recent studies provide increasing evidence of MLN’s interactions with off-target proteins beyond the viral genome, suggesting that the complete…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>In Silico and In Vitro Potential of FDA-Approved Drugs for Antimalarial Drug Repurposing against <em>Plasmodium</em> Serine Hydroxymethyltransferases</strong> - Malaria has spread in many countries, with a 12% increase in deaths after the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Malaria is one of the most concerning diseases in the Greater Mekong subregion, showing increased drug-resistant rates. Serine hydroxymethyltransferase (SHMT), a key enzyme in the deoxythymidylate synthesis pathway, has been identified as a promising antimalarial drug target due to its conserved folate binding pocket. This study used a molecular docking approach to screen 2509 US Food…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inhibition of the RNA-Dependent RNA-Polymerase from SARS-CoV-2 by 6-Chloropurine Isoxazoline-Carbocyclic Monophosphate Nucleotides</strong> - Isoxazoline-carbocyclic monophosphate nucleotides were designed and synthesized through the chemistry of nitrosocarbonyl intermediates and stable anthracenenitrile oxide. Docking and molecular dynamics studies were first conducted for determining the best candidate for polymerase SARS-CoV-2 inhibition. The setup phosphorylation protocol afforded the nucleotides available for the biological tests. Preliminary inhibition and cytotoxicity assays were then performed, and the results showed a…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Multi-effective characteristics and advantages of acupuncture in COVID-19 treatment</strong> - Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a major disease that threatens human life and health. Its pathogenesis is complex and still not fully clarified. The clinical treatment is mainly supportive and lacks specific treatment methods. Acupuncture treatment can inhibit immune inflammatory reactions, neuroinflammatory reactions, oxidative stress levels, and hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity, improve lung function, and relieve migraine, fatigue, anxiety, and depression. However,…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong><em>In silico</em> and <em>in vitro</em> inhibition of host-based viral entry targets and cytokine storm in COVID-19 by ginsenoside compound K</strong> - SARS-CoV-2 is a novel coronavirus that emerged as an epidemic, causing a respiratory disease with multiple severe symptoms and deadly consequences. ACE-2 and TMPRSS2 play crucial and synergistic roles in the membrane fusion and viral entry of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). The spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV-2 binds to the ACE-2 receptor for viral entry, while TMPRSS2 proteolytically cleaves the S protein into S1 and S2 subunits, promoting membrane fusion. Therefore, ACE-2 and TMPRSS2 are potential drug…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Development and evaluation of a novel chromium III-based compound for potential inhibition of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants</strong> - Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused 403 million cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and resulted in more than 5.7 million deaths worldwide. Extensive research has identified several potential drug treatments for COVID-19. However, the development of new compounds or therapies is necessary to prevent the emergence of drug resistance in SARS-CoV-2. In this study, a novel compound based on hexaacetotetraaquadihydroxochromium(III)diiron(III) nitrate, which…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Curcumin-derived carbon-dots as a potential COVID-19 antiviral drug</strong> - Even entering the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, only a small number of COVID-19 antiviral drugs are approved. Curcumin has previously shown antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid, but its poor bioavailability limits its clinical uses. Utilizing nanotechnology structures, curcumin-derived carbon-dots (cur-CDs) were synthesized to increase low bioavailability of curcumin. In-silico analyses were performed using molecular docking, inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid C-terminal…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Using a function-first ‘scout fragment’-based approach to develop allosteric covalent inhibitors of conformationally dynamic helicase mechanoenzymes</strong> - Helicases, classified into six superfamilies, are mechanoenzymes that utilize energy derived from ATP hydrolysis to remodel DNA and RNA substrates. These enzymes have key roles in diverse cellular processes, such as genome replication and maintenance, ribosome assembly and translation. Helicases with essential functions only in certain cancer cells have been identified and helicases expressed by certain viruses are required for their pathogenicity. As a result, helicases are important targets…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Development of a mutant aerosolized ACE2 that neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 in vivo</strong> - The rapid evolution of variants of SARS-CoV-2 highlights the need for new therapies to prevent disease spread. SARS-CoV-2, like SARS-CoV-1, uses the human cell surface protein angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) as its native receptor. Here, we design and characterize a mutant ACE2 that enables rapid affinity purification of a dimeric protein by altering the active site to prevent autoproteolytic digestion of a C-terminal His10 epitope tag. In cultured cells, mutant ACE2 competitively…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Discovery of First-in-Class PROTAC Degraders of SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease</strong> - We have witnessed three coronavirus (CoV) outbreaks in the past two decades, including the COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2. Main protease (M ^(Pro) ) is a highly conserved and essential protease that plays key roles in viral replication and pathogenesis among various CoVs, representing one of the most attractive drug targets for antiviral drug development. Traditional antiviral drug development strategies focus on the pursuit of high-affinity binding inhibitors against M ^(Pro) . However,…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Human Airway Epithelium with a Xeno-Nucleic Acid Aptamer</strong> - CONCLUSIONS: Together, these results suggest that FANA-R8-9 effectively prevents infection by specific SARS-CoV-2 variants and indicate that aptamer technology could be utilized to target other clinically-relevant viruses in the respiratory mucosa.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Inhibiting Glutamine Metabolism Blocks Coronavirus Replication in Mammalian Cells</strong> - Developing therapeutic strategies against COVID-19 has gained widespread interest given the likelihood that new viral variants will continue to emerge. Here we describe one potential therapeutic strategy which involves targeting members of the glutaminase family of mitochondrial metabolic enzymes (GLS and GLS2), which catalyze the first step in glutamine metabolism, the hydrolysis of glutamine to glutamate. We show three examples where GLS expression increases during coronavirus infection of…</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Paxlovid mouth likely is mediated by activation of the TAS2R1 bitter receptor by nirmatrelvir</strong> - Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has remained a public health threat since late 2019. Among the strategies rapidly developed to prevent and treat COVID-19, the antiviral medication Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir/ritonavir combination) has shown remarkable efficacy in reducing viral load and relieving clinical symptoms. Unexpectedly, a persistent bitter/bad taste, referred to as “Paxlovid mouth”, has been frequently noted….</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-patent-search">From Patent Search</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A Massacre at a Music Festival in Israel</strong> - Attendees were dancing outdoors when Hamas attacked, firing into the crowd and taking hostages. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/when-massacre-came-to-a-music-festival-in-israel">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Uyghurs Forced to Process the World’s Fish</strong> - China forces minorities from Xinjiang to work in industries around the country. As it turns out, this includes handling much of the seafood sent to America and Europe. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-uyghurs-forced-to-process-the-worlds-fish">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Could the Attack on Israel Spell the End of Hamas?</strong> - What Israel’s response to Saturday’s incursion might mean for Palestinians—and their leaders—in Gaza and the West Bank. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/could-the-attack-on-israel-spell-the-end-of-hamas">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Israel’s Calamity—and After</strong> - October 7, 2023, will be a date etched in Jewish history. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/israels-calamity-and-after">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Israel May Decimate Hamas, but Can It “Win” This War?</strong> - The scale of the violence, death, and destruction has triggered alarm about a wider regional conflict. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/israel-may-decimate-hamas-but-can-it-win-this-war">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>Cities are asking the Supreme Court for more power to clear homeless encampments</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="A person walks past a homeless encampment" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HncpFLK0G6PA8INOQHg49TrjYG4=/243x0:5358x3836/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72739560/1707312743.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
A homeless encampment near a Target store in Los Angeles, California. State and local lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, are seeking to overturn lower court decisions that currently block their power to clear encampments with unhoused people.  | Mario Tama/Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
A decision five years ago transformed homelessness policy. Now the justices could overrule it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zDfQ2X">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZHvUUP">
In 2018, a federal court issued <a href="https://www.vox.com/23748522/tent-encampments-martin-boise-homelessness-housing">a consequential decision about homelessness</a> in America: People without housing can’t be punished for sleeping or camping outside on public property if there are no adequate shelter alternatives available.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Jwjarm">
The Ninth Circuit’s decision, <a href="https://www.vox.com/23748522/tent-encampments-martin-boise-homelessness-housing"><em>Martin v. Boise</em></a>, said that punishing homeless people with no other place to go would violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Ever since,<strong> </strong>cities and states have struggled to comply with it,<strong> </strong>crafting convoluted policies <a href="https://www.opb.org/article/2023/06/07/portland-oregon-approves-ban-daytime-street-camping-homeless/">like a new camping ban in Portland, Oregon</a> that prohibits homeless camping during the hours of 8 am to 8 pm.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dZZvfZ">
As municipal backlash to <em>Martin </em> grew, so has the nation’s homelessness crisis, especially in the nine Western states under the Ninth Circuit’s jurisdiction, where some 42 percent of the country’s <a href="https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2022-ahar-part-1.pdf">homeless population</a> now lives.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E1H78g">
The Supreme Court declined to hear <em>Martin </em>in 2019. But they now could reconsider the decision. <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-175/275911/20230823153037814_Grants%20Pass%20v.%20Johnson_cert%20petition_corrected.pdf">A petition</a> was filed in late August concerning a similar case in Grants Pass, Oregon, a city of 38,000 people. In 2022, the Ninth Circuit decided it would be unconstitutional for Grants Pass to fine homeless people sleeping on public property if there was nowhere else for them to go. The city is challenging that decision.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Z7Ai0j">
The Supreme Court hasn’t indicated whether it will hear this significant case, a step it will likely take<strong> </strong>at the end of this year or early next. Supporters of the <em>Martin </em>decision say there’s no reason the high court should take up the request, as there’s no clear disagreement among circuit courts to resolve.<strong> </strong>In the half-decade since <em>Martin </em>came down, there have been <a href="https://homelesslaw.org/martin-v-boise-impact-page/">dozens of cases</a> affirming it, including in the <a href="https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-132/manning-v-caldwell/">Fourth Circuit in Virginia</a>, and federal lower courts in Ohio, Missouri, Florida, Texas, New York, and Hawaii.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1yLb2m">
But a bipartisan coalition of cities and states is pressuring the Supreme Court to intervene. In the last month, dozens of local governments have filed briefs pleading with the court to reconsider <em>Martin</em>, including liberal cities like Los Angeles, Honolulu, and Seattle.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="crrFuE">
Some in the court system have also signaled they’d like to see the case overruled. This summer, when the full Ninth Circuit <a href="https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2023/07/05/20-35752.pdf">declined to review</a> the <em>Grants Pass v. Johnson </em>decision issued by a three-judge panel in 2022, 16 judges dissented, arguing<em> </em>both cases were incorrectly decided. “<em>Martin</em> handcuffed local jurisdictions as they tried to respond to the homelessness crisis; <em>Grants Pass</em> now places them in a straitjacket,” one dissent read. A state judge in Arizona also <a href="https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/CV2022-010439-926-09202023.pdf">recently urged</a> the Supreme Court to take up the matter, arguing <em>Martin </em>and <em>Grants Pass </em>both<em> “</em>tie the hands of cities that seek in good faith to address the growing homeless encampment epidemic.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WZSmbS">
California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom also <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-175/280288/20230922163648635_Amicus%20Brief%20for%20Governor%20Newsom%20-%20Grants%20Pass_Final.pdf">filed a brief in August</a> urging the Supreme Court to reconsider the cases. While Newsom insisted he is not objecting to the “narrow” <em>Martin </em>decision that people experiencing homelessness should not be criminalized for sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to go, the governor argued cities need more clarity on implementation, and that lower courts have interpreted <em>Martin </em>too broadly.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BjGyMF">
Despite Newsom saying that he’s not seeking to overturn <em>Martin </em>wholesale, homeless advocates say this is naive at best, since that’s what the lawyers representing Grant Pass are asking to do.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pvJrJN">
“Newsom and the other briefs that aren’t asking for a full overturn of <em>Martin</em> — just clarity around some of these restrictions — are fooling themselves, perhaps willfully so, and are being willfully ignorant of the consequences of their involvement,” Eric Tars, the legal director for the <a href="https://homelesslaw.org/">National Homelessness Law Center</a>, told Vox. “The petitioners in this case are asking for a full overturn, that’s the question they have presented to the Court and that’s what they’ll be arguing for.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7BzWQe">
Theane Evangelis, a <a href="https://www.gibsondunn.com/">Gibson Dunn</a> attorney and lead counsel for the city of Grants Pass, told Vox they do believe <em>Martin </em>and <em>Grants Pass </em>are “legally wrong” and “are hopeful the Supreme Court will grant review and undo these harmful decisions.”
</p>
<h3 id="KAXSZs">
The <em>Grants Pass v.</em> <em>Johnson </em>case is about whether it violates the Eighth Amendment to fine or arrest unhoused people
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fxQbWa">
Five years ago, about six weeks after the <em>Martin</em> decision was decided, three homeless individuals <a href="https://clearinghouse.net/case/43966/">filed a federal class-action lawsuit</a> against Grants Pass, Oregon arguing that the city’s laws and customs — like its anti-camping ordinance — punished them for their status of being involuntarily homeless.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VwJtQE">
The lead plaintiff was Debra Blake, who had been<strong> </strong>experiencing homelessness for about a decade and was continually wracking up hundreds of dollars in fines and fees for sleeping outside and allegedly trespassing. By 2020 Blake owed over $5,000 in penalties for living outside. In <a href="https://www.streetroots.org/sites/default/files/Blake%20SJ%20Opinion.pdf">their lawsuit</a>, attorneys representing the plaintiffs noted the dearth of affordable housing and homeless shelters in the city, and blasted Grants Pass’s arguments that unhoused people could simply leave and go elsewhere. Blake died a year later at 62, and so the case was renamed for another homeless plaintiff, Gloria Johnson.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bxdEHP">
In 2022, a three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of the homeless plaintiffs.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PXOtbG">
Opponents of the decision argued <em>Grants Pass </em>marked a radical expansion of <em>Martin</em>,<em> </em>since the Oregon city had issued civil penalties to unhoused people, not criminal ones. Some also alleged that <em>Grants Pass </em>created even further confusion for local governments, since the Ninth Circuit held that <a href="https://gospelrescuemissiongp.org/">a Christian homeless shelter</a> that had strict rules like mandatory church attendance could not be counted as available shelter in Grants Pass due to potential violations of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. Many cities have<strong> </strong>only religious shelters or rely heavily on them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TFCAKn">
Supporters of the <em>Grants Pass </em>ruling say it neither expanded <em>Martin </em>nor created confusion. “I see it as a clarification of <em>Martin</em>,” said Tars, of the National Homelessness Law Center,<strong> </strong>saying that <em>Grants Pass </em>clarifies “that you have to look at the collective impact of all these different ordinances — including anti-sleeping bans or rules barring being in parks after dark — that can make it illegal to exist basically anywhere in public even if they have no other place to do so.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cBZA3w">
Ed Johnson, the director of litigation at <a href="https://oregonlawcenter.org/">the Oregon Law Center</a> and the lead attorney representing the homeless plaintiffs in <em>Grant Pass</em>, told Vox that the decision is being greatly mischaracterized by opponents. “The opinion is exceedingly narrow and puts no limits whatsoever on a city’s ability to prevent permanent or even established encampments,” he said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gWcOWv">
So is it a violation of the Eighth Amendment to issue tickets and fines against people experiencing homelessness?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hAZtf7">
Lawyers representing Grant Pass <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-175/275911/20230823153037814_Grants%20Pass%20v.%20Johnson_cert%20petition_corrected.pdf">say no</a>, emphasizing that enforcing local regulations should not be considered<strong> </strong>cruel and unusual punishments.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pcHBQ0">
“I think the entire idea that it could constitute cruel and unusual punishment to arrest someone for sleeping on the street is incorrect,” added Timothy Sandefur, the vice president for legal affairs at the <a href="https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/">Goldwater Institute</a>, a conservative legal advocacy group that filed <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-175/279897/20230919154157625_GP%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf">a brief</a> urging the Supreme Court to take the case. Sandefur told Vox that “it’s true” that arresting someone for a status like being homeless is wrong, but he argued it would be at most a violation of due process, not of the Eighth Amendment.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8aVV9z">
Homeless advocates in support of <em>Martin </em>and <em>Grants Pass </em>say ticketing, fining, and arresting unhoused people if they have nowhere else to go is indeed a violation of the Eighth Amendment. In a <a href="https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2021/06/Blake-9th-Cir.-Amicus-Brief-ECF-stamped-6-8-2021.pdf">brief filed to the Ninth Circuit </a>in support of the unhoused plaintiffs, lawyers with the <a href="https://finesandfeesjusticecenter.org/">Fines and Fees Justice Center</a> argued that civil penalties <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/42/2/e107/5510723?login=false">frequently trap unhoused people</a> in cycles of poverty and homelessness, ensnaring them in debt that prevents them from securing housing at all.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VGaaU9">
And given the insufficient number of shelter beds, the practical outcome of rules barring rest under a blanket on any publicly owned property or rest in a car overnight in a public park parking lot “effectively function[s] as a city-wide prohibition of homelessness” that “punish[es] their very existence.”
</p>
<h3 id="scihXq">
Overturning <em>Martin </em>and <em>Grants Pass c</em>ould have implications for forced treatment
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dFfW55">
As public frustration with tent encampments has grown, a movement urging a “get tough” approach has emerged, arguing that the costs of allowing tent cities to proliferate <a href="https://www.gibsondunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Martin-v.-Boise-White-Paper.pdf">are too steep</a> and that <a href="https://www.wsaz.com/2022/08/10/tennessee-tackling-homelessness-camping-certain-areas-could-result-felony-charge/">waiting for cities to build</a> enough new housing before acting is unacceptable. Some argue that public officials have grown complacent with the homelessness crisis, and <a href="https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/homelessness-crime-surge-in-phoenixs-the-zone-goldwater-demands-action/">rely on <em>Martin </em>as an excuse</a> to maintain the status quo.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dn0Shr">
In efforts to both crack down on encampments but comply with the Ninth Circuit decisions, some cities and states have <a href="https://stateline.org/2022/04/08/homeless-camping-bans-are-spreading-this-group-shaped-the-bills/">pushed more punitive legislation</a>, like bills to make camping <a href="https://wcyb.com/news/local/public-camping-in-tennessee-becomes-a-felony-homeless-seek-refuge">a felony</a>, or criminalize sleeping outdoors on public property except within designated areas. The question of whether these laws are constitutional under <em>Martin </em>remains an open question. Leaders recognize they probably can’t ban camping everywhere given the court rulings, but they’ve been looking to see if they can ban it in most places instead. If <em>Martin </em>was overturned by the Supreme Court, however, officials would likely feel much more empowered to resume city-wide anti-camping bans and prosecuting those who violate them.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EhxFux">
Tars, of the National Homelessness Law Center, said the major difference between now and five years ago is the emergence of a “concrete, well-funded movement” to criminalize homelessness, rather than a patchwork of local regulations decided by individual cities and towns. “Today there are groups actively working together, producing media, going on Fox News, to proactively push criminalization,” he told Vox. “That didn’t exist prior to <em>Martin </em>v. <em>Boise.”</em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TmFTBD">
In <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-175/280078/20230920180047655_44262%20Brief%20-%20Amici%20Curiae.pdf">a Supreme Court brief</a> filed by the California State Sheriffs’ Association and the California Police Chiefs Association, the groups wrote “they, by no means, argue for the criminalization of the homeless” and are committed to “improving the outcomes” for unhoused people. Still, they said the “disastrous” decisions “impermissibly intrude” on their policing duties, and make it “all but impossible” to curb dangers associated with encampments.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vwvdPU">
If <em>Martin </em>and <em>Grants Pass </em>are overturned, it will not only have implications for clearing tents, but likely also for sending homeless people to substance use or psychiatric treatment programs.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kfoxsu">
In several of the briefs submitted by local governments, cities reported examples of homeless people “refusing help,” and as <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/23856608/portland-homeless-tent-encampments-forced-treatment-guardianships">Vox has previously reported</a>, the question of what to do with those who turn down offers of shelter has gotten entangled with broader, ongoing debates about involuntary treatment. As pressure to clear encampments mounts, many homeless advocates fear that new laws mandating treatment will be indiscriminately applied to those sleeping outside, and even more so if <em>Martin </em>and <em>Grants Pass </em>no longer provide a check on local governments’ behavior.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="k5kNLt">
Some of the briefs filed to the Supreme Court in support of reconsidering <em>Martin </em>have already raised this issue. “Allowing people to live on the streets or in tents in a park is <em>not</em> a compassionate response to the problem,” wrote Sandefur in the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-175/279897/20230919154157625_GP%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf">Goldwater Institute’s amicus filing</a>. “A compassionate response would consist of providing people with the care they need — including taking them into custody against their will if they are incapable of managing themselves.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dcDuL0">
Asked about the connection between encampments and involuntary care, Sandefur told Vox these cases show that cities “are going to have to find a better solution than what they’ve been doing, which is largely ignoring the problem and hoping it goes away.”
</p></li>
<li><strong>Benjamin Netanyahu failed Israel</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="Military vehicles in formation. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/73vBXoDLS7y4Ccx-Gq5dgUcraSQ=/312x0:5304x3744/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72738760/GettyImages_1715812963.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Soldiers from an artillery unit stand ready near their position a few miles outside of Gaza, near Sderot, Israel, on October 9, 2023. | Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
We can now be sure: His policy of repressing Palestinians doesn’t make Israelis safe.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BoOier">
In the past 24 hours, two reports out of <a href="https://www.vox.com/israel">Israel</a> have pointed to a striking conclusion: that the failure to prevent Hamas’s murderous assault on southern Israel rests in significant part with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SxieQF">
First, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/09/israel-hamas-attack-gaza-intelligence/">the Washington Post’s</a> Noga Tarnopolsky and Shira Rubin wrote a lengthy dispatch on the many policy failures that allowed Hamas to break through. They find that, in addition to myriad unforgivable intelligence and military mistakes — especially shocking given Israel’s reputation in both fields — there were serious political problems. Distracted by both the fight <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/7/24/23805532/israel-judicial-overhaul-reasonableness">to seize control over Israel’s judiciary</a> and their effort to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/10/7/23907912/israel-palestine-conflict-history-explained-gaza-hamas">deepen Israeli occupation of the West Bank</a>, Netanyahu and his cabinet allowed military readiness to degrade and left outposts on the Gaza border in the south unmanned.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WD0rJd">
“There was a need for more soldiers, so where did they take them from? From the Gaza border, where they thought it was calm … not surprising that Hamas and Islamic Jihad noticed the low staffing at the border,” Aharon Zeevi Farkash, the former head of the Israel Defense Forces’ military intelligence, said in comments reported by the Post.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="g0qz1T">
Second, <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-09/ty-article/.premium/another-concept-implodes-israel-cant-be-managed-by-a-criminal-defendant/0000018b-1382-d2fc-a59f-d39b5dbf0000">a columnist at Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper</a> unearthed evidence that Netanyahu has intentionally propped up Hamas rule in Gaza — seeing Palestinian extremism as a bulwark against a two-state solution to the conflict.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IA1mle">
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” the prime minister reportedly said at a 2019 meeting of his Likud party. “This is part of our strategy — to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oaFZwn">
These exact comments have not yet been confirmed by other sources. But the Times of Israel’s <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/">Tal Schneider wrote on Sunday that</a> Netanyahu’s reported words “are in line with the policy that he implemented,” which did little to challenge and in some ways bolstered Hamas’s control over the Gaza Strip. Moreover, Schneider notes, “the same messaging was repeated by right-wing commentators, who may have received briefings on the matter or talked to Likud higher-ups and understood the message.” Some Netanyahu confidants have <a href="https://twitter.com/DanielSeidemann/status/1711338210679304483">said the same thing</a>, as have outside experts.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pDxylF">
Put together, these two pieces tell a larger story: that the strategic vision of Netanyahu’s far-right government is a failure.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PWFqXk">
The notion that Israel can deliver security for its citizens by dividing and conquering Palestinians, crushing them into submission as a kind of colonial overlord, is both immoral and counterproductive on its own terms. Recognizing this reality will be crucial to formulating not only a humane response to Hamas’s atrocity, but an effective one.
</p>
<h3 id="5U2nyM">
The far right’s theory of security failed
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3DNLwR">
In 2017, Israeli far-right parliamentarian Bezalel Smotrich proposed what he termed a “<a href="https://hashiloach.org.il/israels-decisive-plan/">decisive plan</a>” to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6L89IX">
Smotrich, who is now serving as finance minister in Netanyahu’s cabinet, argued (correctly) that the root of the conflict was competing claims to the same land from two distinct national groups. But, unlike his centrist peers, Smotrich claimed that these ambitions were incommensurable: that no territorial compromise could ever be reached between Israelis and Palestinians. In such a zero-sum conflict, one side has to win and the other has to lose.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x7oa5u">
The key to Israel winning such a total victory, he wrote, is simple: Break the Palestinians’ spirit.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VjmrQX">
“Terrorism derives from hope — a hope to weaken us,” Smotrich argued. “The statement that the Arab yearning for national expression in the Land of Israel cannot be ‘repressed’ is incorrect.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DfgioK">
Doing this, he continued, begins by annexing the West Bank and rapidly expanding Jewish settlements there. Once Israel has declared its intention to never let that land go, and created realities on the ground that make its withdrawal unimaginable, the Palestinians will reconcile themselves to the new reality — accept a second-class form of citizenship, leave voluntarily, or attempt violent resistance and be crushed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AILjR4">
Smotrich has used his time in Netanyahu’s cabinet to try to <a href="https://www.972mag.com/settlements-roads-infrastructure-smotrich/">implement this plan</a> — working both to de facto annex the West Bank and to rapidly expand Jewish settlement. The result has been <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/23/middleeast/west-bank-growing-violence-concerns-intl/index.html#:~:text=Hundreds%20of%20Israeli%20settlers%20attacked,operation%20in%20the%20Jenin%20area.">the exact opposite</a> of what Smotrich thought would happen: <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/2/28/23617766/israeli-settler-rampage-palestine-violence-government">Atrocities by emboldened settler extremists</a> ignited Palestinian anger. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-66558184">Atrocities committed by Palestinians</a> led to settler retaliation, creating an unstable situation requiring a significant redeployment of Israel Defense Forces resources to the West Bank — whose <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/06/20/1183278647/west-bank-gas-station-attack-eli-settlement">raids themselves became a source of Palestinian grievance</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nHR6EU">
And that, per the Washington Post, is why those troops weren’t on Gaza’s border. Israel’s forces, who should have been defending against terrorists in Gaza, had been dragged to the West Bank as a consequence, at least in part, of the far right’s ideological project.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="g63gNO">
In fairness to Smotrich, he did admit in his 2017 proposal that his favored policies would likely meet with violent resistance: “In the first stage, it is likely that the Arab terror efforts will only increase.” This, he argued, would represent “a last desperate attempt to actualize their goals.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bQOsfF">
Yet the current Hamas attack, and the longer history of Israel-Gaza, does not appear to track such a trajectory. Israel has besieged Gaza for about 16 years, and fought multiple wars with Hamas and other Palestinian militants in the strip. They were not under imminent risk of being stamped out by Israel prior to this attack, nor is there any evidence that Hamas leadership believed this was the final window to try to stop Israel from seizing control of the West Bank. Calling Palestinian terrorism a pure product of “hope” is a simple ideological construction at war with a more complex reality.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4KpNL1">
A notable thing about Smotrich’s 2017 document is that it contains exactly zero proposals for dealing with Gaza. In his mind, the conflict will be decided in the West Bank — specifically, by Israel’s successful assertion of full control. Gaza is basically an afterthought, discussed only as offhand evidence that the Palestinians can’t be trusted to govern themselves.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RFp9Cz">
This omission was always an obvious problem, one of many in Smotrich’s cruel thinking. But now it points to something more: an indictment of not just Smotrich, but the government he serves in.
</p>
<h3 id="LsBLif">
<strong>Netanyahu’s failure</strong>
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jJH8OE">
Israel’s prime minister is not as ideological as Smotrich. Netanyahu’s primary political concerns at present are maintaining power and staying out of jail. He has elevated extremists like Smotrich to the cabinet not purely out of ideological affinity, but because <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/23864407/israel-judicial-overhaul-supreme-court-hearing-netanyahu">they’re the ones who would back his assault on the independence of the Israeli judiciary</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="in3HQP">
But at the same time, his approach to the Palestinians has long evidenced the same basic assumption as Smotrich’s “decisive plan”: that they can and must be crushed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DEiySm">
Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, with three distinct stints in office: 1996-1999, 2009-2021, and 2022-today. During this time, he has been consistently hostile to Palestinian national aspirations — either outright opposing a two-state solution to the conflict or at most paying insincere lip service to it.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jSOAU8">
It’s not for nothing that Smotrich wrote in his 2017 document that “in democratic terms, there is no daylight between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the plan before you.” He assessed, as the prime minister’s actions have borne out, that Netanyahu never had any intention of granting Palestinians true self-determination.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xt7PYc">
This is why Netanyahu reportedly saw Hamas rule in Gaza as something of an asset. So long as the Palestinians remain divided among themselves — Hamas in charge of Gaza and the moderate Fatah faction in power in the West Bank — then a peace agreement is likely impossible: You can’t come to a negotiated settlement without a unified negotiating partner. The terrorist threat Hamas poses, on this thinking, can be managed; <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/10/9/23910159/israel-gaza-siege-palestinians-hamas-humanitarian-crisis">the endless blockade</a> and periodic military operations, euphemistically called “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/7/22/5926275/israel-gaza-mowing-the-grass">mowing the grass</a>,” can keep the danger posed by Hamas within acceptable parameters.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="W3TnPH">
One of the key differences between Smotrich and Netanyahu is that the former was less subtle. While Smotrich’s plan aimed for a “decisive” defeat of the Palestinians announced through formal West Bank annexation, Netanyahu basically aimed to keep slowly entrenching the status quo of Israeli control forever. He presided over a gradual and incremental pressure campaign, one where Israel incrementally expands its presence in the West Bank while Palestinians are prevented from mounting anything but token resistance.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0bZCdU">
Netanyahu’s approach grew out of events on the ground. When the peace process pushed by left-wing parties in power in the 1990s failed, giving rise to the terrorist violence of Second Intifada, many ordinary Jewish Israelis concluded that the Palestinians simply couldn’t be negotiated with and moved to the right. The center of political gravity <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/09/26/israelis-have-grown-more-skeptical-of-a-two-state-solution/">shifted away from long-term solutions</a> to the conflict and toward an approach of simply learning to manage it as best as possible.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CuL2Y7">
This does not mean most Israeli Jews became ideological right-wingers; they are not, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-nearly-80-of-israelis-prefer-uae-deal-over-west-bank-annexation/">polling suggests</a>, fully committed to the project of expanding settlements or West Bank annexation. Mostly, they wanted Netanyahu and the right to keep them safe in a way that the left seemingly couldn’t. The prime minister, in recognition of this reality, campaigned first and foremost on security — earning the moniker, perhaps self-claimed, of “<a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2022-08-12/ty-article-opinion/.premium/no-longer-mr-security-netanyahu-reinvents-himself-as-a-social-populist/00000182-8ebd-d9bc-affb-efbfae870000">Mr. Security</a>.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D88Gmb">
Hamas’s attack on Saturday, a mass slaughter of Israeli civilians without precedent in Israeli history, exposed a basic contradiction in this image in the most agonizing way. Simply put, there is no way now to argue that the right-wing ideological project has delivered the security most Israelis crave.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cyd2SF">
The more Israel deepens its control over the West Bank, spreading settlements across its lands, the more Palestinians resent them — and the more Israel has to devote its military resources to repressing Palestinians rather than protecting Israel inside its borders.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6tKnaK">
Nor is there any long-run hope that the Palestinians will simply give up. Hamas’s willingness to engage in brutal violence, sure to be met with an overwhelming response from Israel — one that has reportedly taken the lives of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-forces-clash-with-hamas-gunmen-after-hundreds-killed-2023-10-08/">hundreds of people</a> in Gaza so far — indicates that even 16 years of blockade can’t end the incentive for terrorism.
</p>
<aside id="Lu41mp">
<div>
</div>
</aside>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FPFjfJ">
If the failure of the peace process exposed problems in the left’s vision for the conflict, the Hamas attack has exposed the fundamental emptiness of the right’s. The more you hurt ordinary Palestinians, the more you give succor to the extremist visions of monsters like Hamas. The more you draw Israel into the West Bank, the more you entangle Israelis in a system of domination over Palestinians — one that will ultimately deliver nothing but heartbreak for anyone involved.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eJYakM">
To be clear: I am not saying Israelis brought these attacks on themselves, that it’s some kind of moral chickens coming home to roost. Nor am I saying that Netanyahu, in place of Hamas, bears moral responsibility for Hamas’s horrifying atrocities against civilians.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QTNMdN">
What I am saying is that Netanyahu’s policy — visiting harm on the Palestinians in the name of protecting Israelis — is a terrible one. It is both morally indefensible and strategically counterproductive. It is no concession to Hamas, nor legitimation of its violence, to recognize this reality.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fSX9Lk">
After last weekend’s events, it’s exceedingly obvious that trying to crush the Palestinians through settlement and division is not helping anyone. <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22442052/israel-palestine-two-state-solution-gaza-hamas-one">It’s time for a change</a>.
</p></li>
<li><strong>What a “complete siege” of Gaza will mean for Palestinians</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="An explosion is seen at nighttime. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/L8U6EoqCnhixAz3xRins9ImOnS0=/555x0:5888x4000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72738076/1715805520.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
A fireball erupts during Israeli bombardment of Gaza City on October 9, 2023. | Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Gaza was already under siege. Now it will get worse.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zl9xce">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/israel">Israel</a> says it will place Gaza, the occupied territory it has long blockaded, under a “complete siege” after the weekend’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/10/7/23907683/israel-hamas-war-news-updates-october-2023">attack by Hamas</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4H33qY">
On Saturday, the Palestinian military group launched intensive attacks from Gaza into Israel. Hamas overwhelmed Israeli military installations, killed over 700 people, kidnapped civilians and reportedly soldiers, and dispatched rockets on Israeli civilians. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was caught flat-footed despite Israel having the Middle East’s most advanced military and surveillance state.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="L7mdig">
Now comes the reaction. Israel has called up <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-drafts-300000-reservists-it-goes-offensive-2023-10-09/#:~:text=Hagari%20said%20300%2C000%20reservists%20have,are%20going%20on%20the%20offensive.%22">300,000 military reservists</a>, and many analysts expect that Israel will send in ground troops. “I ordered a complete siege on Gaza. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday. “As of now, no electricity, no food, no fuel for Gaza.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kCI9Cl">
But Gaza has been described as living under siege for 15 years, as documented by <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/11/1078532">United Nations experts</a>, journalists, and human rights researchers.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pW8YMJ">
Israel and Egypt control the territory’s border crossings, and Israel controls its access to the Mediterranean Sea and its airspace. More than 2 million Palestinian people reside in a narrow strip, only about twice the area of Washington, DC. The humanitarian crisis that Palestinians have endured in Gaza has been severe even before this latest conflict, and now it will get much worse.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9GbRsG">
The United Nations <a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/content/escalation-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-2">reports</a> that so far, 413 Palestinian people in Gaza have been killed and 2,300 have been injured, and those numbers will continue to rise. “Hospitals are overcrowded with injured people, there is a shortage of drugs and consumables, and a shortage of fuel for generators,” Ayman Al-Djaroucha, the Médecins Sans Frontières deputy coordinator in Gaza, told <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/msf-performs-surgeries-donates-supplies-gaza-amid-overcrowded-facilities">Reliefweb</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nosvwh">
The scale of violence has already exceeded the most recent severe conflict between Israel and Hamas. <a href="https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/israeli-palestinian-conflict#:~:text=On%20May%2021%2C%202021%2C%20Israel,the%20eleven%20days%20of%20fighting.">Over a two-week period in May 2021</a>, Palestinian militants killed 12 Israeli civilians and one soldier; Israel’s airstrikes killed more than 250 people, at least 129 of them civilians, in Gaza and injured 1,948 people.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uG2g5C">
The Israel-Palestine conflict has always been asymmetrical: Israel, a nuclear power, has received tens of billions of dollars of US military aid. This weekend, Hamas ruptured Israeli society with wanton violence and mass killing. But it is the Israeli state that retains the capacity to perpetuate an all-out war on the Gaza Strip. Israel has often responded <a href="https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/20394.html">disproportionately</a> to suicide bombings and rocket attacks from Hamas, partially as a deterrent strategy. The result, however, is an intensity of violence in an occupied territory where residents have nowhere to run, where civilians are regularly killed in Israel’s assaults on Hamas targets.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XsKywI">
Now, after suffering its most devastating and brutal attack in decades, Israel is starting to respond. Based on Israeli officials’ rhetoric, this will likely also be more devastating for Gaza than anything that has come before.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MqsUB2">
“Over the next several days, as the Israeli military bombardment of Gaza runs up the civilian death toll, it will say it is striking what it knows to be military targets,” Yousef Munayyer, a researcher with the Arab Center in DC, says. But Hamas’s surprise attacks “exposed just how much Israel doesn’t know about what is going on in Gaza.”
</p>
<h3 id="9zQzYh">
A besieged Gaza
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Rwy41T">
Hamas, a political and militant faction that the US designates as a terrorist organization for its armed resistance to Israel, took over Gaza in 2007. Since then, Israel has instituted a blockade on the territory that has significantly affected the quality of life: There are <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/al-mezan-warns-gaza-global-recession-and-financial-crisis-are-bringing-hundreds-thousands-palestinians-their-knees">extreme rates</a> of poverty; over 60 percent of people need food assistance; and access to health care is extremely limited. UN experts have described it as “<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2020/07/israels-collective-punishment-palestinians-illegal-and-affront-justice-un">collective punishment</a>.” About a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza, and nearly <a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/content/fifteen-years-blockade-gaza-strip">80 percent</a> of youth, are <a href="https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/gaza-strip/#economy">unemployed</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wvRmrH">
Israel and Egypt have never allowed enough construction materials into the border crossings under their control to enable Gaza’s rebuilding after conflicts. (During the May 2021 conflict, about <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/gaza-shelter-rehabilitation-vulnerable-households-affected-conflict-escalation-may-2021">58,000 homes</a> were destroyed, and Israel leveled a 12-story <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/16/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-associated-press.html">high-rise</a> in Gaza that it said contained Hamas assets but also contained the offices of the news agencies Associated Press and Al Jazeera English, and the homes of many <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/opinion/gaza-airstrike-apartment-building.html">families</a>.)
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="People are seen in front of a ruined building." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/BpBFJlzkcjt9CiIwviImOzuzUac=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24989894/1725849602.jpg"/> <cite>Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Palestinian citizens inspect damage to their homes caused by Israeli airstrikes on October 9, 2023, in Gaza City, Gaza.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A man stands on a balcony overlooking the destroyed mosque. His back is to the camera. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Nw7-JxpMObge0XZeXBlDRCy68hw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24989898/1715393380.jpg"/> <cite>Ashraf Amra/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
A view of destroyed Al-Garbi Mosque hit by Israeli airstrike, in western Gaza City, Gaza Strip, on October 9, 2023.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Tv0nDz">
The political economy of Gaza features something rare and troubling: <a href="https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1649448">de-development</a>, which Harvard scholar Sara Roy defines as “the systematic dismantling of a normal economy and its rational functioning.” She has conducted fieldwork there that shows Israel deliberately impedes the betterment of the occupied territory’s living conditions.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="I9vWxW">
“The Gaza Strip is the scene of a humanitarian disaster that has nothing to do with natural causes — it is entirely man-made, a direct result of official Israeli policy,” <a href="https://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip">according</a> to B’tselem, the Israeli human rights group.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YKV8qL">
Hamas retains some popularity in Gaza, but many Palestinians see the group as corrupt and incapable of addressing the needs of residents. A survey of Palestinians from this summer showed that if legislative elections were held for the first time since 2006, about 44 percent of Gazan voters would <a href="https://www.pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll%2088%20English%20full%20text%20June%202023.pdf">choose</a> Hamas. But there has been no opportunity for elections, and so Palestinians living in Gaza must endure an unrepresentative government which imposes some Islamic tenets, implements <a href="https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/232088">repressive policies</a> against LGBTQ people, and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/30/palestine-impunity-arbitrary-arrests-torture">abusive policies</a> against detainees.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xcEjkX">
Now, life in Gaza will get worse. The Israeli military has not released additional details about what the “complete siege” will look like, but Netanyahu <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-hamas-war-netanyahu-vows-destroy-gaza-palestinian-group-death-toll-soars/">said Saturday</a> that Israel would turn “all the places that Hamas hides in, operates from … into ruins.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kVlzPp">
After barrages of artillery and rocket fire, ground operations to target Hamas fighters may follow.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UJc5hX">
In the process, the already thrashed Gaza may look like some of the most acute humanitarian crises in war zones from recent memory, like Aleppo amid Syria’s civil war or Mariupol after the Russian assault on Ukraine.
</p>
<h3 id="L76TK0">
How the world responds could help determine how this plays out
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aS9mAM">
The US fully backs Israel in response to the weekend’s attacks. “In this moment of tragedy, I want to say to them and to the world and to terrorists everywhere that the United States stands with Israel,” President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/10/07/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-terrorist-attacks-in-israel/">said</a> on Saturday. He added, “This is also a terrible tragedy on a human level. It’s hurting innocent people.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5k5fiC">
But many experts are also concerned about how much more suffering could occur, and that goes unmentioned in some of the US’s public statements. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, for example, told CNN, “Our first focus is to make sure that Israel has what it needs to deal with the situation in Gaza.” In an interview with ABC, Blinken <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-10-1-23-secretary-antony-blinken/story?id=103811616&amp;utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&amp;stream=top">warned</a> about the risks of other militant groups and states in the region getting involved, and he told <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/antony-blinken-secretary-of-state-face-the-nation-transcript-10-08-2023/">CBS</a>, “And whatever Israel does in Gaza, as always, we look to it to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualities, something, of course, that Hamas doesn’t do.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7iCfaA">
Hamas has targeted civilians, in a devastating manner. But human rights defenders and experts on the Middle East worry that, without a clearer call for restraint from US officials, such language can serve as a tacit encouragement of the kind of destructive tactics that Israel has subjected Gaza to several times over.
</p>
<div id="dhH7j7">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" dir="ltr" lang="en">
The fact that no US, EU or other western officials have urged Israel to abide by int’l law or avoid attacking civilians in Gaza or even acknowledging that non-Israeli civilians are in any way at risk is a diplomatic and moral failure of the highest order. <a href="https://t.co/9J4yuXvYbs">https://t.co/9J4yuXvYbs</a>
</p>
— Khaled Elgindy (<span class="citation" data-cites="elgindy_">@elgindy_</span>) <a href="https://twitter.com/elgindy_/status/1711080657206563026?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2023</a>
</blockquote></div></li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UOCGuw">
The Biden administration has often used the phrase “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/opinion/biden-foreign-policy.html">rules-based order</a>” to describe its goal of maintaining global stability, pointing out that <a href="https://www.vox.com/russia">Russia</a> violated that order by invading Ukraine, for example. That terminology is not being deployed on cable news networks now as Blinken’s colleagues brief the press.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f0u2kn">
In this heated moment, even calling for a ceasefire appears to be beyond the pale. Blinken spoke with his Turkish counterpart and shared on social media a brief summary of the call, saying he had “encouraged <a href="https://www.vox.com/turkey">Turkey</a>’s advocacy for a cease-fire and the release of all hostages by Hamas immediately.” And then he deleted that post, according to <a href="https://twitter.com/Bsamuels0/status/1711383829057835122">Ha’aretz</a>. Instead, Blinken then <a href="https://twitter.com/SecBlinken/status/1710802239248335115">posted</a>, “Israel has the right to defend itself, rescue any hostages, and protect its citizens.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zJLaou">
Hamas’s violence demands condemnation. But calls for a ceasefire or restraint are necessary. The UN, for example, is talking with leaders and encouraging them to “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xphKhTgU76A">exercise maximum restraint</a> … to prevent further risks of escalation and loss of life.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wCyI3N">
“For a long time, I’ve believed that the only thing standing in the way of Israel wiping out Gaza entirely or pushing Gazans into the Sinai has been the ‘international community,’” Tariq Kenney-Shawa, an analyst with the Palestinian research group Al-Shabaka, told me.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EKuDbT">
But the fact that few world leaders have called on Israel to exercise restraint, and that a superpower like the US is sending an aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean as a show of support for its closest ally, suggests that Israel has the latitude to do what it had not done in previous operations on Gaza: launch an<strong> </strong>all-out war.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Q6C9uM">
Kenney-Shawa fears a catastrophe on the spectrum of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/videos/2023/5/15/23723947/palestine-nakba-may-15-protests-israel">Nakba</a>, the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 when the state of Israel was established, which resulted in 15,000 Palestinians killed, more than 500 villages destroyed, and about 750,000 Palestinians displaced.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZxeGn3">
“I think Palestinians are at risk of another Nakba,” he told me.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QklOew">
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MnSJ07">
</p>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Lord And Master and Son Of A Gun please</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Daily quiz | On Asian games, October 10, 2023</strong> - It was a record-breaking Asian Games for India at Hangzhou. Test yourself on the nation’s performance at the Games</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Eden Hazard announces retirement from football at 32</strong> - The former Belgium international joined Real Madrid from Chelsea in 2019 as the club’s record signing but suffered injuries and struggled to settle at the Santiago Bernabeu during a four-year spell.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>BWF World ranking | Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty become world No. 1</strong> - The duo became the first Indian doubles pair to achieve the coveted world number one ranking following their gold medal-winning feat at the Asian Games in Hangzhou.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>UEFA picks U.K. and Ireland to host Euro 2028, Italy and Turkey to stage Euro 2032</strong> - Both bids ran unopposed but still needed official approval from European football’s governing body</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Karnataka bans firecrackers during processions, festivals, marriages; allows only green crackers as per SC order</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Stern action needed against accused in VSSC exam fraud case: HC</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Delhi LG approves prosecution of Arundhati Roy, Kashmir professor in 2010 ‘provocative speeches’ case</strong> - The FIR against Ms. Roy and former professor Sheikh Showkat Hussain was registered following the orders of the Court of Metropolitan Magistrate, New Delhi</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>TSRTC announces Dasara lucky draw with cash prizes worth ₹11 lakh</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Science college graduation day held near Ranipet</strong> -</p></li>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Bavaria election results: Scholz coalition dealt a blow</strong> - Conservative and right-wing gains in Bavaria and Hesse will be felt across Germany.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Irish-Israeli woman missing in Israel</strong> - The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs says it is aware of the case and is in contact with the family.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine dam: Rebuilding shattered lives after Ukraine’s dam collapse</strong> - Despite water shortages, losing loved ones, homes and crops, people affected by the collapse of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam are determined to rebuild.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Juan Carlos: Court throws out ex-lover’s €145m legal case</strong> - A court in London has thrown out a legal case brought by a former lover of the ex-king of Spain.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Every family in Hroza village affected by missile attack</strong> - At least 52 people, including a child, were killed in Thursday’s Russian missile strike, Ukraine says.</p></li>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Amazon Prime Big Deal Days are here: All the best deals of the big sale</strong> - We’ll be updating this post with new deals throughout Amazon’s big sales event. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1968974">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket is about to become a workhorse for NASA</strong> - “It’s an incredible capability for our nation. We’re fortunate to have it.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1974372">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Porsche’s Macan EV comes out in 2024—we drive the prototype</strong> - Expect engaging handling and very fast charging when it goes on sale next year. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1974508">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Unity CEO John Riccitiello is retiring, effective immediately</strong> - Former EA CEO will be replaced in interim by James Whitehurst from IBM/Red Hat. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1974554">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Thousands of WordPress sites have been hacked through tagDiv plugin vulnerability</strong> - If a site is redirecting visitors to scam sites, it was likely hacked by Balada. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1974522">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A man enters a pharmacy and orders a box of Viagra</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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The pharmacist asks for about 10€ and gives him the meds. He opens the box, takes one, and pulls out a 500€ note to pay. The pharmacist doesn’t have enough change to give him, so he offers to go to the bakery next door to get some bread and try to get the money changed and swiftly comeback.
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In the bakery, he asks for a pastry, eats it and attempts to pay a few euros with the 500€ bill. The baker also doesn’t have enough change to cover the bill, so the man kindly offers, yet again, to go to butcher’s across to buy some meat and comeback.
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In the butchery, he buys a couple stakes, gets a bag to take them home and, once again, pays with the 500€ bill. Once again, there isn’t enough cash to make change. Only this time the man says he’s going to exchange it at the pharmacy, only to not return to any of the shops.
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Later that night at the local bar, the pharmacist, the baker and the butcher all meet for beers and end up sharing their stories. Seeing how they intertwined, the butcher comments:
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“God damn, Viagra really must work!”
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The pharmacist and the baker don’t understand.
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The butcher explains:
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“That bastard only took one, and it was enough to fuck us three!”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MoonWraith"> /u/MoonWraith </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/174ab4i/a_man_enters_a_pharmacy_and_orders_a_box_of_viagra/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/174ab4i/a_man_enters_a_pharmacy_and_orders_a_box_of_viagra/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ben and Tim want to go drink in a bar (NSFW)</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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Problem is, they have no money. “No problem” says Ben, “I have a cunning plan. Take this sausage and put it in your boxer. We go into the bar, drink a couple of beer and when they come with the tab you open your pant and let the sausage out. I go down on it and they will kick us out and we won’t have to pay.”
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Tim agrees, takes the sausage and off they go in the bar. They drink, and after two or three rounds they see the bartender coming with the tab. So Tim openes his trousers and shows part of the sausage, and Ben goes to town on it. Bartender is not amused and kicks them out.
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Happy that it works they go to the next pub. Same game, they drink, have fun and when the tab arrives they play dip the sausage and get thrown out.
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This goes on for a couple of bars, until after one throw down (or throw out) Ben shakes his head and tells Tim “Sorry old friend, I can’t take any more beer or sausage tonight”. Tim looks at him and answers “You have it easy, I lost the sausage three bars ago…”
</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Freestila"> /u/Freestila </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/173z6ry/ben_and_tim_want_to_go_drink_in_a_bar_nsfw/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/173z6ry/ben_and_tim_want_to_go_drink_in_a_bar_nsfw/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>It is really unfortunate that Islam, Judaism and Christianity have been fighting each other for centuries</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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Hindus, on the other hand, never had any beef
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/GamerY7"> /u/GamerY7 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/174ap6r/it_is_really_unfortunate_that_islam_judaism_and/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/174ap6r/it_is_really_unfortunate_that_islam_judaism_and/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Microbiology joke</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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Two bacteria walk into a bar and start pouring themselves pints.
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The bartender tells them that customers aren’t allowed on this side of the bar.
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The bacteria say, “We’re not customers, we’re staph.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/SadiqUddin"> /u/SadiqUddin </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/174ikzn/microbiology_joke/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/174ikzn/microbiology_joke/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A single Karen is called a Karen. A group of Karens is called …</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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a homeowners association.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/winkelschleifer"> /u/winkelschleifer </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/173rkfs/a_single_karen_is_called_a_karen_a_group_of/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/173rkfs/a_single_karen_is_called_a_karen_a_group_of/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
</ul>
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